


You can’t be her everyone, hey let’s be a family

by kwritten



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU - Tommy is alive, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4012543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He catches Thea’s elbow when she starts to stumble, she’s always half a step from falling into his waiting arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You can’t be her everyone, hey let’s be a family

They hold a mock funeral. That’s what she calls it because she is young and her anger is almost acceptable. She is sullen. She wears chuck taylor’s and black jeans instead of a dress because _aren’t we just playing house_ and is high as a kite. He holds her elbow firmly so that no one notices when she sways, so that she won’t trip and fall, so that she can stand when she says goodbye to her brother and her father. _You aren’t my family,_ she spits out at him. She’s got a bottle of vodka in her hand and she’s sitting in the wine cellar, her impossibly long legs sprawled out in front of her. Her hair is a tangled mess and there’s an itch in his fingers to smooth it out, to hold her in his lap and untangle each thread of her hair with his hands until she stops crying. He thinks this is the wrong response, so he sits beside her instead and takes the bottle and takes a long swallow that doesn’t even burn. He kicks her foot with his foot and says, _well Oliver was the only family I had, so I guess you’re stuck with me_. She rests her head on his shoulder and cries. He drinks the rest of the bottle of vodka and doesn’t cry. Moira finds them a few hours later, Thea is asleep in his lap and he’s petting her head and singing _We Are the Champions_ like it’s a funeral dirge. He smiles up at the woman who was like a mother but nothing like his mother and smiles, “She fell asleep.” He can’t carry her up the stairs because he’s too drunk and he regrets that the rest of his life. He sleeps sitting on the floor at the foot of her bed. Moira doesn’t even try to get him into his own bed. “Someone should be here when she wakes up. She’s never been hungover before,” he’s more sad about that than he thinks he ought to be. “I thought you said she wasn’t drunk,” Moira raises her eyebrow. Tommy shrugs, “She’s a Queen.”

 

They hold a funeral because there’s no coming back from a gunshot wound. He’s a child. He has to be told this. Someone explains it to him in very soft tones. He thinks his mother could have explained it better. He’s right about this. He is alone after the funeral because his father has disappeared. Isn’t that funny. A boy with blue eyes and light hair – like a cherub in those paintings his mother liked, his mother would have liked this boy – stands beside him at the gravestone. “Who is under there?” he asks. Because children ask things without knowing that they are painful. “My mom,” he answers. Because children answer questions honestly even if they are painful. “Was she pretty?” He considers. Every boy thinks his mother is the most beautiful woman in the world, but if his lives in a past tense, can that be true anymore? “Prettier than your mom, I bet.” The other boy laughs, his eyes crinkle at the edges like an old man and it makes Tommy smile. “There’s no one else,” his lip quivers and he hopes this new boy doesn’t think he is a sissy for missing his mom and being sad that he is alone. He thinks even the bravest dad would be sad today. “Well… don’t you have a brother?” Tommy looks down at the fresh dirt, “Not yet.” The boy smiles like he won the lottery, “How about me!? I don’t have a brother either.” Tommy thinks very hard. “We could be family!” and the boy is so excited, that Tommy agrees. It’s not like there’s anyone else reaching out a hand for him to grab onto. 

 

They hold a press conference because that’s what you do when someone comes back from the dead. Moira and Walter are a power couple and Oliver looks a little too secure for someone who was lost on an island for five years and Tommy grips Thea’s elbow hard before she falls down. _You should know better,_ he hisses. _You should leave well enough alone,_ she laughs. He watches her sneak off with some kids from school and he watches Oliver not notice. He thinks of the last five years, the charity events and galas, the funerals and weddings, the parties and accidents. He thinks of pulling Thea’s hair back when she vomits on the side of the road. Of the number of times that he’s left in the middle of a date because she’s calling and she’s crying. Of the number of times he’s fallen asleep on the floor at the foot of her bed because he’s the only brother she’s got. He did an awful job. Oliver may have done worse, but it was his responsibility. His sister. Tommy looks over at the Queen family, safe and secure in their prodigal son returning home and turns on his heel to leave. She’s stumbling over her heels and waving down his car, but he doesn’t stop. He turns off his phone and whispers to himself, “That isn’t your family.” He gets drunk on bad intention and thinks about all the times that Thea didn’t call, that he was too far away, that he ignored a desperate text. He wallows in all the things that he did wrong and orders a beer. He sleeps with a woman with so much flesh he can sink his finger and teeth into her and doesn’t think of a thin girl calling after his car on spindly legs and stilettos. 

 

They hold a funeral because that’s what you do when a maniac kills a CEO on the side of the road. Tommy sits three rows back with Laurel at his side. They are friends even if her self-destructive spiral drove him out of her bed. He watches Thea stumble, he sees Oliver reach out for her too late. His hands form into fists in his lap. He fights the urge to run to her, to wrap his arm around her thin shoulders and hold her hand. He tells himself over and over, “That isn’t your family.” He hugs Oliver after the service and gently puts Thea back into her brother’s arms when she clings to him for too long. He walks away. He turns off his phone – even though he knows they won’t call out for him anyway. He told them to stop and so they did. He never said a word and he never wanted them to stop, but they did. They don’t come to him anymore, their tears still on their faces. It’s been a while since there wasn’t a reason to. Maybe all along it was him running to them, desperate for a family that didn’t exist. Desperate to fill a void they didn’t want to fill. “We aren’t family,” he mutters into his glass and he takes home a boy with dark hair and dark eyes and thin shoulders. He buries himself in the act of forgetting until he stops mourning a mother long dead, a brother he never had, a sister that was never his. 

 

They hold a mock funeral because that’s what you do when your father dies of mysterious circumstances while in a foreign country and his sister (that he never knew was really his sister) can’t get the body back home despite her best efforts and dashes into his arms when the plane lands instead of into the waiting arms of her brother. They are both her brother. It’s been him all along. _We can be a family,_ she whispers into his ear. And the shiver that runs down his back has everything to do with her body pressed against his and nothing whatever to do with a dream coming true. Her brother takes them both in his embrace and presses a kiss on her forehead. “We’ve always been family,” he says. And Tommy almost thinks Oliver believes it when he said it. Even if he doesn’t anymore. He catches Thea’s elbow when she starts to stumble, she’s always half a step from falling into his waiting arms. He holds her hand during the sermon and they both have dry eyes. There’s a hint of retribution in hers. _I’m so happy to be home,_ she whispers to him and squeezes his arm. He hears them arguing before he sees them, Thea’s voice low and steady – Oliver’s growing higher and louder. They see him before he can make out what they are arguing about, Oliver’s face hard and strange. _Come on, let’s get drunk like old times,_ she says and whisks him away despite her brother’s protests. Tommy takes her to the shitty hole in the wall bar that he always goes to when he’s trying to convince himself that she doesn’t belong to him. It feels nice to have her shoulder at his shoulder. They sing karaoke which the regulars don’t know what to do about since there is no karaoke machine or stage. He takes her home, they lean on each other, and tucks her into bed. _I’ve been doing this as long as I can remember,_ he says to her shoe that has an impossible buckle he can’t quite manage. _Let me help,_ she takes his hand and pushes him onto the bed. He is drunk. He can feel her taking off his shoes, pulling his button-down off one shoulder at a time, sliding down his pants, disposing him of his socks, tucking him under a comforter that smells like her. _Guess it was your turn,_ he says into the darkness. _What is family for?_ she slips in beside him and curls into his chest. In the morning, he’s curled around her back, one leg thrown over hers. She’s naked. Just a silk thong and his boxers between their skin. She’s pressed up against every part of him. He kisses her shoulder and pretends to be asleep until she turns in his arms and kisses him softly on the lips, _We could have been family._

 

 

She hosts a charity gala. She follows in her mother’s footsteps. Oliver has disappeared with his hood and she doesn’t seem perturbed. She crooks her finger at him and draws him away from the crowd. “Excuse us, I just need to borrow my brother for a moment,” she smiles and it looks so innocent he almost believes him. _Is it the caterer? They promised me---,_ but her lips are already pressed against his, her legs encircling his waist. They are in a dark room, her back is against the door. _I need you,_ and she pulls him out of his pants and he’s inside of her before he knew he needed her, too. She’s stopped wearing underwear to events like this. Or maybe she never did. She likes him to fuck her just inches away from reporters and debutantes and their parents’ friends. She likes him to fuck her in secret where they are most likely to be exposed. She’s always wet and wanting. She always comes fast and hard, her nails scarring his back. Afterwards, he kisses her ear, _Was it the caterers, though? Because they promised no screw ups this time._ “Oh she always tells them something she doesn’t want so she can escape into the kitchen to fix it, don’t you sis?” Oliver’s breath is hot on his neck. Thea raises an eyebrow, “All back from saving the world?” “What is your excuse this time?” Tommy wants to arch back into Oliver’s chest, he can feel the heat of it just inches behind him. But he’s not allowed to. Not yet. “Just a little family pow wow,” Tommy clears his throat, “about the caterer.” “Right,” Oliver growls. But she’s already kissing him again, slow and silky, her fingers causing a riot in his hair. He sinks into her because it’s too late, he’s already too far gone to save. _Family_ , she whispers to him. He’s holding onto her right arm while Oliver stands on her left. _We could be family,_ he whispers back. His teeth graze her earlobe but no one sees it. It causes her to shudder and Oliver gives him an annoyed look. “One big, happy family,” and Oliver smiles his best Queen smile for the crowd.


End file.
